Facing the Truth
by L'ange Dans L'enfer
Summary: Chad finally comes out to Taylor, leaving her broken hearted. He and Ryan remember the beginnings of their relationship and ponder the possibility of coming out to the rest of the school. Set after HSM2 with mild swearing. ChadxRyan, obviously.


Hello all! This is my first HSM fic, although not my first fan fic. I've actually got another account where I post most of my fics, but I have a few friends who have already made it clear they don't think much of my love for High School Musical. So, I'd rather just not let them know I write fics for the movies, and yes I plan on writing more fics! I hope everyone likes it, Chyan is my favorite pairing from both films, though the I Don't Dance sequence from HSM2 spurred it on. Please give me feedback, no flames though, thanks. I also didn't have a beta for this, so excuse any grammar/spelling errors.

Disclaimer: Clearly I don't own HSM or HSM2, Disney does. If I did own them, I would have a lot of fun playing with Ryan and Chad.

* * *

"Damn," Chad muttered at the large gust of autumn wind that almost knocked him off his feet as he emerged through the double doors of East High. He gazed the nearly empty parking lot with trepidation, only to gaze upon the most beautiful scene he had ever seen.

Chad Danforth had seen very few breath-taking things in his life, but no one could argue that the sight of Taylor McKessie leaning against his truck, hair and skirt blowing provocatively in the raging air was enough to make any man's breath catch. Her warm brown eyes found his and she smiled broadly, making his heart beat rapidly with guilt.

He had to tell her the truth, had to break her heart, not an enviable task. Yet it had to be done. He fell in love with someone else during their summer excursions, and he refused to embarrass her by pretending otherwise. Finally Chad remembered to breathe and sighed heavily, tasting the dirt kicked up by the winds before he reluctantly stopped in front of her.

"Hey," she said happily before pushing off his truck and hugged him tightly. He stiffened and did not embrace her, but she either ignored it or just didn't take notice. "What took you so long? I saw Troy and the others leave nearly half and hour ago."

Chad couldn't tell her he had spent that thirty minutes staring at himself in the mirror, forcing himself to leave the humid room with the stench of sweat and mildew, making himself ruin someone's life, at least for the moment. He could only pray she didn't hate him forever.

"There's something I need to tell you," he simply said. "Something I should have told you before we came back to school."

Although Ryan couldn't hear the crack of Taylor's hand across Chad's cheek, he felt the sting nonetheless. Wincing, he watched his boyfriend as he came out to the one girl he cared for more than anyone in the world but couldn't love her the way she wanted him to. Ryan had to fight every urge to leap out of his newly purchased convertible and help Chad explain to the broken-hearted girl that she did nothing to "make" him gay, he simply didn't realize or even accept that he was until his heart told him otherwise.

Instead, Ryan just slid deeper into the polished leather seat and removed his bright orange hat to make himself as invisible as possible. He had promised Chad not to interfere, that he understood he had to do this on his own and he wouldn't bug him, just wait for Chad to call.

Ryan didn't completely understand, however. He didn't have a pseudo-girlfriend to come out to, he just told his family one night after many months of self-evaluation and coming to the realization that staring at the pool boy more often than Sharpay did not a straight man make. They all accepted him, of course, because in such a family nothing short of a sex tape scandal more outlandish than Paris Hilton's could shock them into anger or even repulsion.

His mother began eyeing her country club friends' sons for possible dates, his sister, who always dragged him to every shopping spree, now asked him for his opinion more often even if she never listened and his father taught him golf while trying to, in vain, convince him that being gay didn't mean he had to wear his hats crooked.

Movement caught Ryan's eye again and he watched with detached sympathy as Taylor stormed away, tears streaming down her cheeks, her rolling backpack trailing angrily behind her. He didn't know Taylor; she barely talked to him during the summer, even in such close contact during the dance rehearsals. She either talked to whomever he happened to be talking with or just smiled as he tried to strike up a conversation. He didn't like her, but he didn't dislike her either. He was just sorry she was caught up in this whole mess.

Looking back at Chad's beat-up truck, he wondered if the basketball star really needed to be alone right now, and considered driving up, since it was such a long walk, and inviting himself in the passenger seat of the now familiar vehicle to give Chad a more tangible form of comfort. But before the thought finished forming in his head, the rusting Ford sped away, leaving the faint sent of burnt rubber and smoking oil to the wind's mercy. A few moments later, a white mini-van, he assumed driven by Taylor, haltingly followed the truck's exit, and just as Ryan peeled out from the parking lot, his cell phone vibrated in his back pocket. Jumping slightly, he pulled it out with a little difficulty and swore when he just missed the call, thinking it Chad. It began buzzing again, but instead of a picture of Chad's beaming face greeting him, it simply read 'unknown call.' Hesitantly he flipped the phone open and held it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"What the heck did you do to Chad?" The one person Ryan prayed hadn't called yelled into his ear. How did she get his number?

"Taylor?" Maybe he had made a mistake. The phone service did suck out here.

"Very good," she growled sarcastically. "It seems the blonde hasn't seeped completely into your brain."

"Hey!" Ryan's hair color was completely natural, and he paid a lot of former nannies and one very good graphic artist to make sure that no one thought otherwise.

"Oh please. My insult is nothing compared to the fact that you _stole_ my boyfriend!"

"Now wait just a second," Ryan spat angrily at the insinuation that he snuck around taking perfectly hetero guys from their perfectly hetero girls. "I didn't steal anyone. Chad came to this realization on his own; I didn't convince him he was gay. In fact, we didn't do anything until after he came out to me." He decided to not to add that they had only kissed since then, though they both knew the other wanted to do more. They just couldn't bring themselves to cross that line with Taylor still in the dark.

"Yeah, but hanging out with an obviously homosexual dancer probably didn't help if he was as confused as you both seem to think."

"Taylor," he said, softening his voice. "I'm sorry this happened this way. Neither of us wanted you hurt. We can't help that we fell for each other."

"That's what _he_ said," she managed before sobbing again and hanging up. Shaking his head, Ryan tossed the phone into the cup holder and tried not to cry at the girl's predicament. It was his fault, after all. He should have told Chad to break up with Taylor the very night they first kissed, but he was greedy and selfish and wanted the excitement of the secret. Not to say now that they were free to do as they pleased he would be less attracted to Chad, but it sent an extra jolt of excitement through his veins, already charged when they kissed, knowing they could get caught any second.

"Damn," he muttered. "It really _is_ my fault."

"That's ridiculous," Chad insisted later that night after Ryan vocalized his fear. They sat in Ryan's rather large room, weakly attempting to do homework with the soft strains of some musical or another in the background. As much as he tried to pay attention, Chad just didn't have the brain function to remember all the show tunes Ryan played for him. "If you hadn't agreed to teach all of us to dance, hadn't become friends with all of us, I wouldn't have gotten to know you, and how amazing you are."

Ryan blushed, but remained undeterred. He opened his mouth to protest further, but Chad cut him off quickly. "I'm the one you kissed you, remember?" They both smiled at the memory of their rather passionate first kiss in the darkened Lava Springs kitchen. "I haven't been this happy in a long time, and I have you to thank for it." Ryan blushed and finally looked content before turning back to struggling with his Pre-Calculus assignment. Chad tried to return his focus to the chapter of Albert Camus' "The Stranger" he had to read for English, but found it soon to be in vain.

He thought instead on the truth of his words. Yes, Taylor was going to hate them both for a long time, but their dates felt forced and they almost always surrounded themselves with their friends who saw what they wanted to see. He also knew they started dating because everyone said they should. He tried to ignore his doubt on their relationship, just as he tried to ignore his "unnatural" feelings in middle school.

He never felt comfortable in his own skin since seventh grade, when he caught himself staring at his friends in their various states of undress in the locker room. It scared him when he realized his daydreams turned into fantasies of kissing some boy or other, whoever the resident hottie was that week. He felt so isolated until finally he convinced himself that his hormones didn't care who he looked at or thought about as long as they were hot. His fear receded over time, but he never regained that sense of belonging.

Then he truly met Ryan Evans and discovered how right his barely remembered feelings felt. For three years he assumed Ryan had no thoughts in his heads unless they originated in Sharpay's mind. Everyone knew when she formulated a plan, he went along with it, no questions asked. That popular opinion changed when the dancer, hurt and betrayed by his sister's schemes, still managed to clobber Chad at baseball. He eve persuaded him, along with the rest of the Wildcats, to learn how to dance, thanks to the insults and jibes they shouted across the diamond. Double entendres slipped their way through the good-natured teasing, and fortunately Chad knew his friends were great at sports but not so much at subtlety.

After the game, Taylor and Gabriella giggled their congratulations before one (Chad thought it was Gabriella but looking back all he remembered was Ryan's flushed face) swapped Ryan's white and blue striped hat with Chad's red cap and gushed at how "cute" they would looking each other's outfits. The two boys smiled with shocked bemusement, caught the other's eyes with silent questioning. Chad shrugged noncommittally before Ryan dragged him to the now empty locker rooms and pulled off his once pristine shirt. Chad couldn't keep himself from ogling at the porcelain skin stretched over well-defined muscles, his throat suddenly dry. If Ryan noticed Chad's greedy stare, he didn't comment, just teased Chad until his thoughts broke and they spent lunch laughing with their friends as Ryan quickly joined their group.

The party at Gabriella's that night couldn't have been more fraught with sexual tension. Every accidental brush, playful tap and megawatt smile charged Chad in such a way he could no longer deny he definitely had something for Ryan Evans. He hadn't known if the lithe young man felt the same until one dance lesson when Ryan taught them all some ballroom dancing. They had the choreography to "Everyday" down pat, but they all caught the bug that had infected Ryan since birth and wanted to know more. As they all stumbled their way through the fox trot, Ryan walked around and corrected their postures, and Ryan had grabbed Chad's hand to do just that, and let it linger for longer than necessary. Thankfully Taylor had been momentarily distracted by some bit of gossip Martha was dishing out and did not see the purely sensual looks that passed right in front of her.

Two weeks, two very stressful weeks passed as the two tiptoed around the truth before Chad decided he couldn't handle it anymore. He asked Ryan to stay until the end of his shift so they could talk alone. He didn't know what he wanted to say, but coming out to Ryan and kissing him shortly thereafter was not on his list. They would have made out much longer if not for a large roasting pan that clattered to the ground. Hundreds of questions and thoughts ran through their minds, fire burned beneath Chad's skin as the two stared panting at each other in silence.

Suddenly Ryan ran off without a word, but Chad managed to catch up with him, rather quickly, stopping them both by the pool.

"I want to be with you Ryan," he said, tired of thinking these words and afraid to say them. "You make me feel more like myself than I have for years."

Ryan glared at him with hurt eyes and accused him with swollen lips. "Don't make fun of me," he hissed at a thoroughly confused Chad, still panting from the make-out session as well as the attempt to run.

"What? Why would I make fun of you? I kissed you."

"Yeah, and now you'll run back to your team mates and laugh at how you tricked the fag."

"Seriously?" Chad asked, genuinely shocked at Ryan's statement and his use of a derogatory word. "After nearly a month you still think we all make fun of you? That we're all in on some sort of sick joke? Why would you even think that?"

"Because I don't know what it feels like not to be used," Ryan admitted, mostly ashamed, partly angry. "I know what everyone whispers about me, the rumours spread behind my back. All my life I've either been laughed at or stepped on by the people I wanted to befriend."

Chad's heart broke as Ryan confessed his insecurities and watched helplessly as he sunk into a nearby pool chair.

"Don't look at me like that," Ryan muttered as he crumpled his deep red hat in his hands. "I don't need your pity." Chad said nothing as he sat down beside him.

"Ryan, I don't pity you," he finally spoke. "I'm not going to laugh at you with my-our-friends or even by myself. We all respect you for finally getting away from Sharpay. And I happen to be falling for you," he added quietly. Ryan glanced at him skeptically before Chad reached over and covered his hands with his own, causing the hat to fall silently to the ground. They kissed again, this time gentle and tender, and they grew so caught up in each other's scent and taste and touch that they barely heard Jason and Kelsi approaching in time to get away.

"Chad? Chad!" Ryan snapped his long pale fingers in front of Chad's blank stare, pulling the jock back into the present. "I've been calling your name for like, five minutes," Ryan said with feigned exasperation. He abandoned his math homework and crawled up to lay next to Chad, who had sprawled across Ryan's covers in order to read. He rested his blonde head on Chad's t-shirt clad chest and sighed happily. Chad grinned, moved his free arm to a more comfortable position around Ryan's shoulders and kissed the top of his head before returning to his earlier abandoned book.

"I think we should come out to the school tomorrow," Ryan offered quietly after a few minutes.

"What?"

"We should just walk through those doors hand in hand at let them all stare."

Chad tossed his book to the ground, realizing homework was futile tonight. "Do you think we're ready for that? I mean, not only are we queers--"

"Don't use that word," Ryan cut in tersely.

"We're an interracial gay couple. It will be the opposite of easy and other people have broken up because of less difficult things." Chad finished without vocally acknowledging Ryan's interruption.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Ryan replied dryly. "But we've told our friends, and with the exception of a few jerks I know they'll stand up for us, we won't go through it by ourselves."

Chad nodded, not completely convinced, his insides churning with fear and the thought of what their school would do. He remembered the lecture his mother gave him about what ignorance awaited him if he ever came out publicly, and he could barely imagine the horrors of coming out in high school, especially with the resident drama king on his arm. They were extremely lucky to have such supportive friends, and he knew they wouldn't back down from their offer of protection; he just couldn't shake this feeling of unknown dread.

He looked down at Ryan's hopeful face and smiled. They wouldn't be alone; they had each other, as soap opera cheesy as that sounded. It wasn't going to be easy, and he hated the thought of what ignorant minds could put them through, but if Ryan wanted to…

Suddenly Taylor's tear-streaked face flashed in his memory and his resolve faltered. How much would it break her heart to see him happy with Ryan Evans? When he told her he was gay, she asked if someone else had come into his life, and while he admitted it, causing the rather painful slap, she could not pull a name from him. She might be in pain, but she wasn't stupid. Sooner or later she would figure out that friends like Ryan and Chad shouldn't sit _that_ close at the lunch table, and that the permanent smile on both of their faces had more to do with each other than she would like.

"Do you think we can wait a few more weeks?" Chad asked after several tense moments of silence. Ryan's face fell. "I mean, I just told Taylor I'm gay and it would be mean to parade ourselves in front of her." Ryan considered this momentarily, remembering the phone call from the aforementioned girl, but before he could answer his mother appeared at the doorway.

"Hands," she ordered with a smile before entering the room as though floating. The boys obligingly held their hands up to prove no, how did she put it, "hanky-panky" was going on. But both boys weren't so stupid as to do more than casual kissing while his parents were home.

"Chad," she said with that same serene smile. "As much as I know Ryan enjoys your company, it is rather late." Chad checked Ryan's rather simple alarm clock and jumped in surprise to see red numbers glowing 10:56 angrily at him.

"Wow, sorry Mrs. Evans! I didn't realize the time." Chad apologized as he gathered his forgotten school books. The blonde woman just continued smile (Chad often wondered if it was stuck that way), ruffled Ryan's perfect hair and left the room.

"I promise we won't have to wait much longer," he said in a rushed voice as he zippered his bulging backpack.

"It's okay; we should give Taylor some time." Ryan grabbed Chad's wrist to stop his leaving and tried his best to copy his mother's smile. Chad stared into his face, the frustration barely hidden behind that ghost of a smile. Despite being able to act his sister off the stage, Chad always saw through Ryan's best efforts when it came to their relationship.

"I'm sorry," he whispered before kissing him gently. "I don't deserve you."

"That's debatable," Ryan answered between kisses. "You should go." Chad let his last kiss linger before rushing out the house.

One month later Chad sat beneath a small tree almost obliterated by East High's monstrous shadow, lost in memories of that night. He checked his watches again in impatience, mentally cursing Ryan for his tendency to show up fashionably late. Today would change their lives, since they finally deemed it time for the entire school to witness the most shocking unification since Troy Bolton joined the drama club. Today Chad and Ryan hid no longer.

Finally the familiar blue Jaguar pulled into a spot not far from Chad's resting place and an impeccably dressed Ryan emerged. Chad stood, his heart jumping into his throat and his body unable to stay still for the need to expel his nerves. Without a greeting Ryan kissed Chad softly in attempts to calm them both.

"We can do this," Ryan said though Chad kept his eyes closed for a moment longer. "As long as we have each other and our friends, we don't have anything to be afraid of." Chad finally opened his and stared deep into his boyfriend's blue eyes.

"Let's go," he said before grabbing Ryan's hand and slinging his bag over his shoulder. They walked purposefully toward the intimidating school, ready to finally leave all their secrets behind.


End file.
